China’s travel booking platform ctrip.com has removed the Evergreen Laurel Hotel in Shanghai from its listings after the chain’s Paris venue banned the Chinese national flag during the 2024 Summer Olympics, sparking an Internet furor.
The story — which had garnered 110 million views on Sina Weibo — had since been removed from the platform’s list of most popular posts.
On Monday, a Chinese influencer known as Instructor Zhang (張教官) accused the Evergreen Laurel Hotel in Paris of refusing his request for the Chinese flag to be displayed at the venue in a video uploaded to TikTok.
Photo: Screen grab from the Web site of the Evergreen Laurel Hotel in Paris
A person purported to be a Chinese chef employed at the hotel was shown in the video as saying that the hotel’s Taiwanese general manager had ordered the staff to remove a Chinese flag previously flown there.
The video went viral on Chinese social media, with Sina Weibo briefly listing “Evergreen Laurel Hotel’s Taiwanese manager cut down a red five-starred flag” as its second-most-popular search term.
Guoshi Zhitongche (國是直通車), an outlet affiliated with China’s state-owned Xinhua news agency, shared the video on Weibo, noting that Taiwan and China are listed as the same territory in the hotel’s booking system for the Asia region.
Beijing officials and state media gave no comments regarding the controversy in a rare display of reticence.
When asked, Evergreen Hotels, which manages the hotels, said the franchise was sorry for failing to provide the best possible experience to its customers, adding that it is taking steps to ensure all patrons would be properly accommodated.
The franchise issued a separate statement in China admitting that its handling of the situation was “less than perfect” and that the corporation “does not wish to see the incident negatively impact the goodwill between the peoples across the strait.”
Commenting on condition of anonymity, a hotel employee in Shanghai said ctrip.com has apparently blocked key terms relating to the establishment, preventing potential customers from accessing its listing on the travel booking site.
The hotel’s official Web site remains available to the public, they said.
The Central News Agency has independently verified these claims.
The first two F-16V Bock 70 jets purchased from the US are expected to arrive in Taiwan around Double Ten National Day, which is on Oct. 10, a military source said yesterday. Of the 66 F-16V Block 70 jets purchased from the US, the first completed production in March, the source said, adding that since then three jets have been produced per month. Although there were reports of engine defects, the issue has been resolved, they said. After the jets arrive in Taiwan, they must first pass testing by the air force before they would officially become Taiwan’s property, they said. The air force
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
STRIKE: Some travel agencies in Taiwan said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group tours to the country were proceeding as planned A planned strike by airport personnel in South Korea has not affected group tours to the country from Taiwan, travel agencies said yesterday. They added that they were closely monitoring the situation. Personnel at 15 airports, including Seoul’s Incheon and Gimpo airports, are to go on strike. They announced at a news conference on Tuesday that the strike would begin on Friday next week and continue until the Mid-Autumn Festival next month. Some travel agencies in Taiwan, including Cola Tour, Lion Travel, SET Tour and ezTravel, said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
RSS